DON’T YOU JUST LOVE IT when technology companies leak their upcoming products unintentionally? Well, Acer has come through and given us a better insight into Intel’s upcoming Atom N450 processor as well as its own netbook based on the new platform. There are a couple of surprises such as a 10.1-inch 720p display and of course Intel’s new GMA3150 integrated graphics processor (IGP).
Well, new and new, the GMA3100 was used in Intel’s G31 and G33 chipsets and it was an upgraded version of the GMA950. The GMA3150 is most likely just a low power version of the same with a die shrink and some tweaks. This means that the new Atom processors are stuck with DirectX 9 graphics and un-accelerated video playback, yay!
So what about the new Acer netbook then? Well, the Aspire One 532h as it’s called is a 10.1-inch netbook with a 1280×720 display. I does of course have the Atom N450 processor, but still only a mere 1GB of RAM and either a 160GB or 250GB hard drive. It also comes with the usual netbook features such as WiFi, a memory card reader, a webcam, three USB 2.0 ports, a couple of audio jacks and a D-sub connector. No digital display interfaces here and we doubt Intel has any intention of ever adding this to its Atom range. You also get the choice of a 3-cell or 6-cell battery, optional Bluetooth and of course Windows 7 Starter edition.
It might not be a significant improvement over the previous generation of Atom powered netbooks, but at least Acer has kept the base asking price at a reasonable €299 ($441) which makes it only marginally more expensive than its predecessor, the 531h. Still, as it’s not much of an upgrade, those that already own a current netbook shouldn’t worry about upgrading, as it seems like there’s very little to look forward to.S|A
Lars-Göran Nilsson
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